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The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

(www.nber.org)
506 points imakwana | 14 comments | 21 Apr 25 04:24 UTC | HN request time: 1.151s | source | bottom
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8s2ngy ◴[21 Apr 25 05:47 UTC] No.43748792[source]▶
I believe many of the problems in our current social media landscape could be solved by eliminating the "feed" and instead displaying posts, updates, and pictures from friends, family, and those we know in real life. This approach might conflict with the profit models of big tech social media and could go against what most people have become accustomed to. Personally, I would love a smaller social network where I can stay connected with my school friends, college friends, and distant family without having to see irrelevant posts, like some stupid remark from a politician halfway around the world or influencers doing something outrageous just for attention.
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1. erkt ◴[21 Apr 25 14:07 UTC] No.43752184[source]▶
>solved by eliminating the "feed" and instead displaying posts, updates, and pictures from friends, family, and those we know in real life.

This is what Facebook was when we all signed up almost two decades ago. No one ever wanted a feed of people they didn't know. Free social media is inherently corrupt as they chase profits abusing the user base.

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2. zpeti ◴[21 Apr 25 14:18 UTC] No.43752297[source]▶
I think this is what your conscious mind thinks but your actual desires don’t.

Facebook was refocusing on friend and family content before TikTok came along. But they had to adjust to the TikTok trend otherwise they would have lost market share or potentially lost the entire market.

You might think you want friend and family content, but actually you don’t. Not as much as you want engaging content.

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3. svnt ◴[21 Apr 25 14:19 UTC] No.43752314[source]▶
Maybe just phrasing but free social media isn’t the problem.

VC-backed corporations masquerading as public services to gain user networks they can later monetize is the problem.

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4. svnt ◴[21 Apr 25 14:21 UTC] No.43752329[source]▶
This is slightly inaccurate.

You might want friend and family content, but engaging content will increase your dwell time and profitability as a user, often against your will.

5. _Algernon_ ◴[21 Apr 25 14:36 UTC] No.43752493[source]▶
You are equating action and desire which is a false equivalence. You wouldn't claim that somebody who died in a car accident wanted that to happen, would you?
6. naasking ◴[21 Apr 25 14:52 UTC] No.43752662[source]▶
I think that's just rephrasing the same argument. If social media weren't free, then you would be the customer and those VC-backed corps would be serving you. Social media being free means they're not serving you because you are not the customer. The "free" part and the "VC-backed" part aren't the problem, it's the incentive structure created by combining the two.
7. eli_gottlieb ◴[21 Apr 25 14:53 UTC] No.43752670[source]▶
Well if we don't want them to monetize the user-network, someone would have to straight-up pay to use the sites.
8. jjulius ◴[21 Apr 25 15:18 UTC] No.43752939[source]▶
This ignores nuance. There's "engaging content" (nods head) and "engaging content" (shakes head).

I want the former, not the latter. Social media is optimized for the latter.

9. FuriouslyAdrift ◴[21 Apr 25 15:27 UTC] No.43753046[source]▶
My mind also wants lots of cocaine. That doesn't mean it should have it.
10. s1artibartfast ◴[21 Apr 25 18:04 UTC] No.43754684[source]▶
VC is just a lazy boogieman. Facebook IPO'ed 13 years ago. I dont think it would be different if was owned by the other boogie man private equity, owned entirely by Zuckerberg, or publicly traded.
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11. solumunus ◴[24 Apr 25 06:27 UTC] No.43779831[source]▶
All I know is I used Facebook 10x more when it was family and friends content.
12. svnt ◴[24 Apr 25 07:21 UTC] No.43780071{3}[source]▶
This is a response that lacks imagination and depth of understanding of capital markets.

No, VC money is what enables the entire multi-billion-dollar loss-leading front end effort that creates the network that is sold in an IPO.

No one else will take that level of risk, and the first eight years of its existence wouldn’t occur without VC money.

You’ll also notice how I didn’t say VC money was the problem. That was a long list of very specific qualifiers I wrote that you strawmanned very efficiently.

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13. s1artibartfast ◴[25 Apr 25 16:12 UTC] No.43795282{4}[source]▶
I just dont think it is accurate to put recent behavior at the feet of VC debt funding. FB would have been slower in growth, but had significant revenue long before IPO. The most objected behaviors of FB occurred post IPO.
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14. svnt ◴[26 Apr 25 01:42 UTC] No.43800165{5}[source]▶
Again this response seems to miss the point. Without VC funding, there is no Facebook. The company is a variant of companies that lose money by pretending to not need profit for many years and can only exist because they are/were VC funded.